d fed
crickets, he ascribed his superstition; to another of his ancestors,
who died laughing, he ascribed his buoyant spirits. Two of his
relations had such an affection for each other, that they both died at
the same time. "There seems," he said, "to have been a flaw in my
escutcheon there, or that that loving couple have monopolised all the
connubial bliss of the family."

Byron's superstition was so great that it led him to have his fortune
told by a sybil. It was prophesied that his twenty-seventh and
thirty-seventh years would prove unlucky to him. Some people have
thought that the prophecy was fulfilled: he was married in his
twenty-seventh, and died in his thirty-seventh year.

He was convinced that the principal charms of the Scotch resembled
those of other nations. He was not ignorant of the supposed virtue of
the mountain ash as an antidote against witchcraft. Everything
pertaining to superstition was interesting to him. He had stored up in
his memory many curious anecdotes. On being told of a particular race
of men skilled in Cabala, who by a single gaze of their "evil eye"
could level an enemy to the earth and occasion instantaneous death,
and of parents who had handsome children hanging cameos round their
necks to protect them from the evil consequences of a wicked eye, his
Lordship said, "I remember reading somewhere that Serenus Samonicus,
preceptor to a young Gordian, recommended the Abracadabra or
Abrasadabra as a charm or amulet in curing agues, and preventing other
diseases."

A Hebrew Camyo, supposed to have been handed down from father to son
since the building of the first temple, has a similar effect. Lucky is
the circumcised Jew who has, in the time of need, the good fortune to
have the Hebrew charm applied to his leprously-inclined body; and
thrice fortunate is he, whoever he may be, that has it constantly at
his command, and can claim it as his family relic.

The word Abracadabra or Abrasadabra must be written on parchment, or
other suitable substance, in the manner below, omitting in every new
line the last letter of the former line, so that the whole may form a
kind of inverted cone:

A b r a c a d a b r a
A b r a c a d a b r
A b r a c a d a b
A b r a c a d a
A b r a c a d
A b r a c a
A b r a c
A b r a
A b r
A b
A

Byron looked as if he had added greatly to h